Vioxx Has $32 Million Award Overturned
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It was a huge win for a victim of Vioxx. In 2001, Leonel Garza suffered a fatal heart attack after a month on the painkiller Vioxx.
In 2006, his widow was awarded a $32 million judgment by a Texas jury. But leave it to the caps on punitive awards to have that reduced to $8.73.
Then on Wednesday, an appeals court threw out that award too. The court said that Mrs. Garza didn’t prove that her husband’s pre-existing conditions didn’t cause his heart attack. He had a heart condition and had suffered a previous heart attack.
Lawyers for Mrs. Garza are hoping to take the issue to the Texas Supreme Court. They say they'll prove that Vioxx did not have to be the sole cause of Mr. Garza’s heart attack. There could be other complicating conditions that Vioxx contributed to.
Drug maker Merck has now lost four cases and won 13. And it have morer litigation ahead over the recalled painkiller. Last November, Merck agreed to pay $4.85 billion to settle about 27,000 lawsuits filed by people or their survivors who said that Vioxx caused heart attacks and strokes.
Every year, thousands of people are seriously injured as a result of using prescription drugs or over-the-counter medications they believed to be safe. The FDA acts less like a regulatory agency and more like an approval agency. Even it admits it cannot possible verify the safety of all drugs. It can try to address the efficacy, but that is based on what data the company decides to share.
For the FDA to be seen as the final approval stamp that wipes out a person's ability to go to court under federal preemption, is nonsense at best and a travesty on our democratic principles. Think what this woman must go through just to have her day in court. Sadly, she may never get a chance.